Barco partners with Samsung and Oculus for movie format debut

Digital cinema projection specialist Barco has linked up with Samsung and Oculus to preview its latest cinema solution, Barco Escape – a new ultra-wide, multi-screen movie format that the company says will be the future of cinema experience.

With Barco Escape still in early stages of deployment, the company chose to preview content on a Samsung Gear VR headset for those cities not currently equipped with Escape capabilities. It allows the user to look around during certain scenes of the movie and see what it feels like to view not just what’s on the main screen, but peripheral visual content on the side screens that further immerse the user into the movie.

For the debut, Barco has chosen to show Ruin, a film by Wes Ball and 20th Century Fox which has been reworked in the Barco Escape movie format. The Belgian company saw a strong connection points between the all around you visual experience of Barco Escape and the virtual reality experience Oculus offers.

“The Samsung Gear VR is a powerful tool to introduce Barco Escape to the world,” explained Ted Schilowitz, cinemavangelist for Barco and 20th Century Fox’s resident futurist. “Barco Escape is all about the future of the cinema experience, so what better way to show what we are working on as we roll out this immersive movie going experience for worldwide audiences than to introduce it along with Oculus and Samsung on their latest Samsung Gear VR headset. We arethrilled Oculus and Samsung asked us to be a key part of the launch content on the Samsung Gear VR.”

Ball’s upcoming movie with 20th Century Fox, The Maze Runner, will be the first feature film released in Barco Escape format in select theatres on 19 September.

“We are breaking new ground by combining the latest Barco Digital Cinema projection technology and advanced visual storytelling. Every day, we learn something new as we experiment with this new format,” said Schilowitz. “It’s a tremendous amount of fun to collaborate with such forward thinking teams to make this first movie in the Escape format possible.”